The entire room descended into chaos that had nothing to do with celebrating their victory. It was starting to look more and more like sheer panic. Seamus raised his hand, trying to regain control over the room, but it did nothing. He tried to call out over the nearly rioting crowd, but they couldn't hear him.
“This war is nae over! We have only set ourselves up to be attacked all over again.”
“Campbell is going to come back and kill us all.”
“He cannae be allowed to live! How could he be allowed to live!”
This time, Errik and Liam stepped up to Seamus' sides. They, too, called order into the crowd, but it did nothing. Seamus had lost all control of the situation. Finally, Errik let out a bellow that made Finn's ears ring. It hushed the crowd long enough for Seamus to start answering some of their questions.
“We dinnae ken where Campbell has gone but?—”
“Then what do ye ken?” an accusatory voice cried out.
“I ken that we will find him. I ken that I will stop at nothing to protect ye from him. He will nae regain control of this clan ever again.”
“And we are supposed to believe ye?”
“Yer father vowed to protect us too. Look how well that turned out.”
“How do ye ken that Seamus is nae on Campbell's side? Campbell all but raised Seamus!”
“Och, nay,” Iona whispered. “They are turning on him.”
Finn looked over at her, his brows furrowed.
“It is one thing to be put out by the outcome of today's battle,” she explained. “It is another thing entirely for them to begin questioning his authority. If something does nae change and soon, they might try to oust him.”
“I have never been on Campbell's side,” Seamus argued. “I have always fought for ye.”
With each minute that passed, Seamus grew more uneasy. Finn could see just how unsettled and unsure he was. Even Errik and Liam looked worried. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen them worried. He didn't know if he had ever seen them like this before. And though Flora kept her back to him, he could see it in the way she held her shoulders, tight and up to her ears, that she was just as unsettled. Finn looked over at Brid who now stood in front of Connor with his arms protectively blocking her from the crowd.
“Someone has to do something,” he told Iona, feeling a little desperate himself.
“Aye.”
He looked back at Seamus, watching as he tried to fend off the same questions Finn had asked once upon a time. From the day Finn had met Seamus, he had been suspicious of the man. He had convinced Rolland that Seamus was a spy for Campbell, that he couldn't be trusted. He had convinced himself that Seamus had tricked Flora into believing his ruse too. And when Seamus had appeared at the castle, Finn had been so sure that Seamus was there to betray them all. Finn had demanded answers about Seamus' past and present and future, just as the crowd was doing now. He had been just as irate, just as suspicious.
At some point, Finn's doubts of Seamus had turned into hatred. Seamus represented everything that had gone wrong in Finn's life; from losing his parents to losing Flora to losing Chief Rolland. But somehow, Iona had managed to get him to question what he thought he knew about it all.
“Was she ever truly yers in the first place, then?”
The simple question she had asked in the Glenkirk Castle courtyard had stuck in his head all day. And the longer he thought about it, the more he realized that he had been completely and utterly wrong. Seamus wasn't responsible for his parent's death, Campbell was. And while Flora might have fallen in love with Seamus, Finn had always known that things weren't right between them. They butted heads too often for it to have ever worked in the long run. And it wasn't Seamus who staged a surprise attack on the Lost Valley. He doubted that Campbell had even been able to follow Seamus back to them. The only one responsible for Rolland's death was the man who had put a sword through his chest: Campbell.
As the crowd grew angrier with Seamus, Finn found his anger dissolving. All that was left in its place was guilt.
“Stay here,” Finn ordered Iona, “and if anything happens, escape through the servants quarters. They're down the hall, to the left. The last door on the right.”
“Where are ye?—”
Her question faded into the noise of the crowd as Finn pushed through to the front. As he waded through, he noticed the volume in the room starting to fade. A few steps in and he no longer had to push people out of the way, they almost seemed to part for him. Their attention shifted from Seamus trying to fend off questions to watching Finn walk forward. Finn had never bothered to hide his disdain for Seamus and with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword and the other on the dagger on his hip, he knew what it looked like.
When he was only a few feet away and the majority of the crowd was behind him, he caught Errik and Liam's attention. They stopped trying to quiet anyone down and moved, in unison, to stand closer to Seamus. He tried not to take offense that they would defend Seamus over Finn, but Finn knew his own actions had left them with little choice. He hoped that his plan would change everything.
“Seamus,” Finn called out, letting his voice ring in the now silent hall.
Over his shoulder, Finn could feel Flora tense, along with Brid and Connor, the latter of whom had moved to stand in front of both of the women. Finn took his last step forward and released his grip on his weapons, opting to let them hang loosely by his sides instead.
“What can I do for ye, Finn?” Seamus asked cautiously.
